1561

Anri’s gender is always the opposite of your character’s gender.

Ha, wow!

1562

Yep, Anri changes depending on your gender. Which mostly makes sense given the story beats.

1563

I have long known that the sharp infusion was the way to go with the Utchigatana, but until this play thru I hadn’t realized how beneficial it was to a Lothric Sword. The +4 sharp is already the equal to my +6 raw.

1564

Oh yea, it can be. This is also one of the big invasion PvP areas in the game. Coming out of the boss area embered up will get you invaded a good percentage of the time.

1565

I was yesterday in a concert of Carmina Burana and at the end there was a song about Blanziflor and Helena. Yeah, this name is not gonna fly anymore. But I wondered who Blanziflor was, probably a knight. So I started a new DS3 character Blanziflor and I am going to explore his backstory. I tried to made him as fat as the editor allowed, because Blanziflor the Bumbleknight had his days long passed.

At least Iudex Gundyr was no problem for old Blanzi, killed him on first try. He remembered the old but trusty pattern.

1566

wtf, man, where’s Aldrich??? Robbed.

1567

Haha, turns out the invader I defeated was just an NPC phantom. Was tough and canny!

1568

I reached the tree with my pyromancer. I got him the first time. That was fun.

1569

haha!

The little known subtitle for DS3 is, Dark Souls 3: The Search for Aldrich.

Slippery mofo. But the lore he’s left in his wake is pretty great.

Hit a bit of a wall for the first time. There is an illusory wall between the Pontiff’s cathedral and the approach to another area I won’t name cuz spoilers. It has a ladder that goes way down. At the bottom of the ladder is a room with a bit of water and two really tough monsters (Sulyvahn Beasts), one of which you encounter on your way to Irythill.

I had no trouble the first time I encountered the beast, but now, down here in this lair (for the lack of a better word) I’m having a real tough time. I came close to killing one of the two, but couldn’t quite finish it off.

I trust there is something in this room worth fighting these things for.

1570

Gone +4 Raw with my Longsword now, doing 215 damage which is pretty decent. I have 19 STR right now, it’ll take another 6 before I do more damage than that if I go with a Heavy infusion, but that seems to be the best long-term goal. There are other, better weapons and infusions, but right now I just love the LS moveset. I tried a +3 Halberd for a bit, and while it works I found my killrate dropped quite a bit, but it has its uses against certain enemies.

The early Cathedral section is a horror show, I am very glad to be past it! Opened up the shortcut to the main bonfire and I’m now exploring the area with the giant… er… giant thing. I was doing pretty well until I found a room featuring a big knight with a massive shield, and those pesky gremlin bastards as well. The knight was hard enough without the gremlins, and I died. I’m guessing they’re the ones that rest on the upper level and drop down, so eliminating those first should help quite a bit.

1571

God, I hate those little shitbags.

1572

I underestimated them at first, because they reminded me of Greirat and his tragic tale, but it wasn’t long before I realised that they are, indeed, little shitbags.

In other news, I beat the cathedral knight bastard. He wasn’t so bad. Then there was another one, of course. He wasn’t so bad either. Oh yeah, I forgot about the giant fucking freaky cat-faced spider thing. Fortunately the giants are going down fairly easily. One down, the other can wait until tomorrow.

1573

Yes. A real nice piece of jewelry.

The Giants do go down fairly easy and while the pay off doesn’t seem great they do give something you could use.

If you are up for some jolly cooperation the boss fight at the Cathedral is a great place for it. Good way to learn the fight and a good way to make some souls (and an ember) helping someone else.

1574

Speaking of jewelry, I can’t believe my reward for going back and beating those twin fat dark witches was just to get Flynn’s ring. That was the reward for doing that whole area. It seems… underwhelming from the description.

1575

It’s great if you’re naked. Roll, baby, roll. I should take my clothes off again and put it back on.

1576

You didn’t go far enough. After beating those two you need to go outside, climb some roofs and then drop down into an area. There is some jewelry there well worth the trouble. Heal before doing the final dropping though. Don’t want to die from the fall.

1577

So just…nobody’s gonna acknowledge that I brought back the cinders of a lord, huh? No, “wow, nice one,” or, “jeez, I didn’t think you had it in you”. Just nothing. Typical.

1578

Eventually one, maybe two guys do.

Nice job. How did that fight go for you?

1579

So I have been slowly working my way thru the first DLC, and those damn crow knights or whatever they are kicking my ass. Immense stamina with range weapons, jumping and bleed. Plus, they parry like you wouldn’t believe. I am probably underleveled for the area, well the main boss anyway, but I think I can get at least that far without leaving here for now.

1580

Since I made it to the prior bonfire embered, I decided to summon a helper. It went ok at first, but man those guys were aggressive, and I got stabbed trying to drink. Second time there were no summon signs nearby (oh wait, I wasn’t embered anymore, so that explains that), so I armored up (first time I went in naked) and went back in. It was fast and tense, like some of the hunter fights in BB, but this time I made it, getting juuuuust outside of the range of some of the second phase’s attacks to heal.

Overall I did not care too much for Farron Keep, which is very unsurprising considering my well-established hatred for From’s poison levels. I didn’t have too much trouble with the face, uh, loving goats, after getting grabbed by the first one, although they definitely did keep me on my toes. I spent a lot of this level shooting things in the face from afar with my bow.

I didn’t much care for the swamp preceding it, either. Overall I just don’t like From’s open levels. They are great when making interior spaces, but the exterior ones tend to be very blah, at least for me (although the exterior graveyard path in Cathedral sure was hair-raising the first time through). Looking forward to the Catacombs.